Free Lawless by John Jakes

another subject we must talk about. Perhaps it’s the most important subject of all.”
    With an intense glance from those lovely eyes, she hurried into their rooms. Stunned and shaken, he stood staring at the open door. This was worse than anything he’d anticipated. Far worse. Something drastic had changed her while she was away.

Chapter IV
Dolly’s Secret
i
    P OOR STRELNIK WAS still wailing for Leah to come to his rescue—which she always did. While he scurried from meeting to meeting, agonizing over political schemes and Utopian programs, she provided the family’s income by working six hours a day in a laundry which serviced the fine hotels down near the Rue de Rivoli. The moment Leah closed the hall door and took charge of Anton, the little boy stopped crying.
    Matt walked into the quarters he shared with Dolly. He’d wanted rooms with northern light but hadn’t been able to find any. The large outer room had a slanted skylight facing the southwest. The spring sun cast elongated, slow-moving shadows of windmill vanes on the whitewashed wall at the skylight’s east end.
    Directly under the glass stood Matt’s easel and two small cabinets of equipment. On the easel rested the unfinished portrait. The subject of the portrait had already retired to the bedroom with her portmanteau. He could hear her unpacking.
    He walked around several tall stacks of books to the one decent armchair in which Madame Rochambeau had piled the dirty laundry. He flung the laundry on the floor, sat down and glumly stared at the work on the easel.
    The painting was done on a linen support he’d prepared with a coarse textured ground. He’d posed Dolly in her best dress—the new realism forbade classical drapery—but the picture still looked stiff and unnatural. So far he hadn’t progressed beyond endless repairs on the underpainting.
    Dolly returned to the outer room, having put her pelisse and hat aside. She seemed more composed. A scattering of light from overhead created a kind of nimbus around the top of her head. Her face, by contrast, was darker, in shadow. The result was a softening effect that made her features indescribably lovely, and seemed to enlarge and diffuse her eyes, as though Matt were gazing at her under water.
    He glanced at the portrait. He’d completely missed the living, breathing reality of his subject.
    Her eyes seemed touched with sadness as she sank onto a rickety stool and uttered a little sigh. “Oh, my. The trip was more thing than I thought.” She brushed back a stray yellow curl. “I owe you an explanation for what I said outside.”
    “I’d just as soon wait—or dispense with it entirely.”
    Firmly, she said, “We can’t, Matt. You see what the post brought while I pour some wine. Then we’ll talk. It won’t become any easier if we wait.”
    She patted his hand as she walked by. Somehow he felt as if she’d announced an execution.
ii
    Dolly rummaged in the little alcove that served as a combination kitchen and dining area. “I can’t find the wine. I can’t find anything in the middle of these mountains of dirty dishes. Didn’t you wash anything while I was gone?”
    “My face.”
    She wasn’t amused.
    “I forgot about the wine,” he said. “Madame Rochambeau borrowed the last bottle yesterday. She had company unexpectedly.”
    “I’ll be right back.”
    The outer door closed. He was gripped by a feeling of panic. He didn’t want to sit down for a talk of the sort she had in mind. What she wanted to discuss was obvious from her remarks about her sister.
    He loved Dolly, but he resented this new and unexplained thrust toward domesticity. He was frightened by it, too. He felt as if a trap were closing. He didn’t want to be pushed into choosing between mistresses, as Paul put it.
    Well, then, he had to get her off the subject. At least for this evening. He decided to try a not unpleasant strategy that had worked before and surely would again.
    Nervous, he paced to and fro in